Rotarians help orang asli to cope

the star

BY LOH FOON FONG

Still standing: Debris from last year’s floods still trapped at the bridge, in this picture taken in late March, near the orang asli village in Gerik.

GERIK: A group of Rotarians visited an orang asli village in Kampung Sungai Tekam here to help the residents in the aftermath of floods.

While the orang asli houses survived the severe floods, the Rotarians found a speedboat that they had earlier donated to the villagers was badly damaged and rubber trees destroyed.

“We will get a new engine for the boat,” said the Rotary Club of Bandar Utama (RCBU) president Lily Lee.

She said they would also provide rubber seedlings and raise funds for a new kitchen, cement for the community hall and lighting for a school they built.

The village comprising 16 families is part of the Rotary International Significant Award Project.

Lee said they had been following up on the community twice a year since they set up a school to enable the children to learn reading, writing and arithmetic (3Rs) in 2007.

Village head Tami Serdang said they used the speedboat to send children to the school in Pengkalan Hulu, Perak, and for the villagers’ errands.

Tami said floods had worsened in the last three years due to less cover in the forest, which he blamed on logging activity.

“We want the Government to stop the logging because this has led to worsening living conditions for us,” he said.

Outsiders carrying out fish bombing also depleted the fish in the river and encroached into their land.

“Our villagers used to survive well but now some have become malnourished because it is harder to get food, herbs and rattan for sale from the jungle,” he said, adding that the water source was also polluted.

Logging had also affected the elephants, forcing them to leave their natural habitat and destroying rubber trees and other crops, he said.

Meanwhile, RCBU team leader Judy Chong said the 3Rs school they set up had enabled nine children to enter the national school system at Year 6 or Form 1.

Chong said the school was set up after the wife of a pastor there had asked for funds to run the programme, which taught the children 3Rs, basic hygiene and prepared meals for them.